Cowboy State Daily's The Roundup

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Tuesday, October 27th.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is sponsored by Lisa Kinney for Congress. Lisa has, Chuck hasn't. That's why former Gov. Mike Sullivan has endorsed Lisa Kinney for Wyoming House. Learn why Lisa is the choice for Wyoming's future at Lisa Kinney for Congress dot com. – Wyoming gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Bextel appeared on Tucker Carlson's show over the weekend, claiming Eric Barlow is a Democrat and is against fossil fuels. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports she also said the U.S. didn't land on the moon. "A lot of the interview was her oft-repeated concerns about what she calls scams in Teton County, and complaints about her opponent, Senator Eric Barlow, whom she consistently levels claims against. This is not the first time Carlson has taken an interest in Wyoming politics. He co-founded the Daily Caller News Foundation with backing from the late Wyoming philanthropist Foster Friess, and then Carlson turned around in June and gave a $7,000 campaign donation to Friess' son Steve Friess in the latter's House campaign." Bextel vies for election against the Republican nominee, state Sen. Eric Barlow, and the Democratic nominee, Ken Casner. The election is Nov. 3. Read the full story HERE. – A Wyoming judge has rejected a plea deal that would have given a Riverton man 18- to-20 years in prison for shooting a woman in the face and leaving their 5-year-old daughter alone in a motel room with her dead mother. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports 25-year-old Sterling Louis Black Jr. could once again face a second-degree murder trial in the March 7 death of Angelina Rose Bell. "Because this was a binding agreement, Judge Jason Conder couldn't simply sentence him to anything that he wanted. He either had to accept the plea or reject it altogether, which is what he did. The rejected agreement means that both parties have to decide where they'll go from there. I did reach out to the defense attorney. He did not respond before publication. I also reached out to Angelina Bell's father, Byron Bell. He said this was the deal of a century, and he was very relieved that the judge rejected it." Bell said some of the deepest hurt comes from losing the future he had pictured — growing older alongside his daughter and watching her and her "sisters," the cousins she grew up close to, raise their children together. Read the full story HERE. – Bomgaars won't sell firearms to Colorado residents at the national chain's Wyoming stores because of a clash in state regulations. Cowboy State Daily's Emma Jane Jackson reports that a Cheyenne gun shop owner says, "Colorado is the gift that keeps on giving" to smaller businesses. "I talked to Ryan Allen, the owner of Frontier Arms Supply, and he said that they, as a small gun shop, they're able to navigate these restrictions. Like Colorado customers have to abide by Colorado's three-day waiting period, but his store is small enough that it's easy for them to just hold those guns, mark them, and release them at the right time to Colorado customers, and he said that he's actually seen an influx, both with people buying firearms as well as other things like ammunition and shotgun shells, either that aren't accessible in Colorado or people just coming to Wyoming to avoid the 6.5 percent increased tax on these things in Colorado." Aaron Bomgaars, executive vice president of Bomgaars, tells Cowboy State Daily that the company has a statewide policy in Wyoming prohibiting sales to Colorado customers "out of an abundance of caution. We don't allow sales of firearms to Colorado residents due to the differences in state regulations." Read the full story HERE. – Wyoming GOP Chair Bryan Miller said the party won't endorse Eric Barlow for governor because he didn't commit to the Republican platform, and won't endorse Bextel because she's not a Republican. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland esports He also said Checkgate "destroyed the Freedom Caucus." "It's important to note a couple Freedom Caucus members are still standing, like Tomi Strock, Bill Allemand. But yes, they were largely demolished in the primary election. Miller credits CheckGate for that. The controversy in which Bextel handed out checks on the floor of the House a couple days before a bill she had championed was up for an introductory vote. And he said that there wasn't corruption, but it gave kind of a photo op attracting claims of corruption, which then drove what he called the leftist fundraising efforts headed into the primary." Miller lamented that the party landed at odds with President Donald Trump in the gubernatorial primary. Trump endorsed Degenfelder. Party leadership endorsed Bien. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Cheyenne police say a drunk man dressed as Black Spider-Man was found unconscious after being booted from a bar for trying to fight people. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports he told police that someone dressed as the traditional red-and-blue Spider-Man attacked him in the bar. "I spoke with the Cheyenne Police Department spokeswoman Alex Farkas, who says they did find a man dressed as Spider-Man unconscious in the parking lot, but there was no evidence that he had been assaulted. In fact, she said that reports came in that he had actually tried to hit patrons at the Crown Bar and was thrown out by bouncers. When police found the alleged Spider-Man, he was unconscious and was later transported to the hospital. When police spoke with the man in the parking garage, he said that he didn't throw any of the punches; that there was another Spider-Man in the traditional red and blue costume, who had caused chaos at the Crown Bar. Police say he was heavily intoxicated, and they took him to the hospital. That Spider-Man, it should be noted, was dressed in a black costume, what's known as Spider-Noir." As far as an identity of the webslinger, Brian Snyder owns Bohemian Metals across from the parking garage and lives above his shop. He tells Cowboy State Daily he had, in fact, spotted a red-and-blue Spider-Man walking toward the Crown that night and took careful mental notes. Snyder describes the red-and-blue Spider-Man as "Too out of shape to be the real Spider-Man, kind of pudgy. Just imagine Jack Black stuffed in a Spider-Man costume." Read the full story HERE. – After a hunter found two graves in the same spot from men who died 45 years apart, a gravesite researcher says she's baffled by it. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that Michelle Nelson says back then you were buried where you died.  "There's been little tidbits posted about this site previously, but you know she did some digging, and the one from 1877 was a soldier, possibly a civilian, a French civilian contractor, was working as a surveyor, and the story is that he accidentally shot himself while cleaning his rifle up there in 1877. The grave from 1922 was apparently a railroad tie hack, and she said her research revealed that he apparently died of a heart attack up there. But there's really no information like what he was doing in that location or how he ended up being buried right next to that other gentleman." Nelson said the site is obscure, but not undiscovered or entirely unknown. She provides information for the website Find A Grave, which offers information about little-known or undocumented burial sites. Read the full story HERE.  – Better Wyoming Action & Research, a left-leaning PAC, has retracted about 20 false mailers it sent about GOP Albany County Sheriff candidate Daron Wyatt. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports Wyatt says, "Even one of them being delivered with factually inaccurate information is an issue." "They tell me that only 20 copies of the false mailers were dispatched before that retraction. But but they have claimed things like that why it had been investigated by the FBI and that why it had destroyed torture evidence. He was really bothered by the false claims, and he's been burying a lot of false claims throughout the campaign by now. It's kind of an onslaught on Wyatt, to be honest. He did not vow any kind of legal action on Monday. He said right now he's just focused on taking the high road." Better Wyoming Action and Research endorsed incumbent Democratic nominee Aaron Appelhans on Monday. Read the full story HERE. – Thermopolis police report that a local man said he was drunk the night he shot up his neighbors' homes last week and was caught on video in an apparent attempt to ambush one of them. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that police also say that it was lucky no one answered the door that night. "This guy apparently was caught on the surveillance camera at the door of one of the one of the houses, banging on the door, and then after banging on the door, according to the affidavit by police, he then would hold the rifle he was holding up, put it up against his shoulder, and hold it up to the door as if he was ready to shoot whoever was going to answer the door. So that's why the police say, 'Hey, it's lucky nobody answered the door.' What's kind of strange is, at least according to the affidavits, there didn't seem to be much of a motivation other than he was drunk. He told police, 'I was just drunk. I was a little depressed, and I was just shooting off steam." 42-year-old Joseph Cavalli is being charged with two felonies, aggravated assault, threatening with a deadly weapon, and property destruction, and misdemeanor reckless endangerment. Although he was initially held on a $250,000 bond, that has been reduced to $5,000 cash only. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clickin

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Monday, October 26th.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is sponsored by Lisa Kinney for Congress. Lisa has, Chuck hasn't. That's why former Gov. Mike Sullivan has endorsed Lisa Kinney for Wyoming House. Learn why Lisa is the choice for Wyoming's future at Lisa Kinney for Congress dot com. – Nearly 30 years after the naked body of an 18-year-old Shoshoni woman was found decomposing along an Idaho highway, investigators are still pushing to solve the cold case. Cowboy State Daily's Jen Kocher reports it doesn't help that some of the evidence was destroyed in 2008. "They retrieved a partial male DNA profile off of her body. However, it hasn't matched anyone yet. They do have one suspect and two persons of interest, and the suspect is the last guy who saw her, a trucker named David Lord. The Bonneville, Idaho Sheriff's Office leadership in 2008 determined that her evidence was taking up too much space in the evidence locker, so that he ordered some of it destroyed. So they still do have evidence. However, the partial male profile so far has not conclusively matched with their suspect David Lord or the other two men who are persons of interest. This case hinges on a tip coming forward." The investigation into Tanya Teske's murder shifted in the spring of 1998 when federal and local authorities connected a series of killings spanning from 1983 to 1997 across Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and Idaho. The killings were dubbed the "Great Basin Murders," named from the geographic region in which the bodies were found. Read the full story HERE. – After 54 years of delivering mail through wind, ice and mud on a 66-mile rural route around Hulett, Wyoming, the Spangler family is calling it quits. Cowboy State Daily's Dale Killingbeck reports that Ione Spangler says,  "I would probably have to finish it with a walker." "It was a 66-mile route up and up to a little town in Montana, and then back down to Hewlett in a kind of a circle, hitting all these ranches along the way, and as you would expect, lots of mud in the wintertime back in the day. It was interesting how it started because her dad was like a bondsman. He put up a bond for this mail person back in the day, and this person got sick, and so the U.S. Postal Service said, 'Hey, you put up the bond now; it's your route, so you got to do it.'" Spangler recalls some winter challenges. Once, perhaps in 1978, when she and her sister were helping with the route, a blizzard struck. They had chains on their truck tires and were traveling in four-wheel-drive, but the wind was blowing drifts across the road faster than they could shovel them out. She remembers two men met them on the road and helped them get across the state line into Montana. Read the full story HERE. – A skeleton sex orgy strapped to the roof of a Casper GMC SUV has some residents angered and some shrugging. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that one outraged resident says, "To me this is no different than a couple having sex in public."  "I spoke to the president of the Wyoming Prosecuting Attorneys Association, Loretta Kallas, and she says that this is a free-speech issue. So, while there are state laws prohibiting sex acts in public and obscenity laws, this one falls into an interesting category where the people who put up the display might argue that it's satire or political commentary. Kallas says that matters because prosecutors wouldn't just have to convince the public that this is obscene; they would have to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt." Under Wyoming law, material is obscene when an average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that it appeals to a prurient interest; it depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and, taken as a whole, it lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. The key word there is "and." All three requirements have to be met, Kallas tells Cowboy State Daily. Read the full story HERE. – Truckers who crisscross the steepest mountain grades across the West pray they never have to use a runaway truck ramp but they're grateful for them. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that one trucker says, "It's the difference between getting stopped and a bunch of people getting killed." "The truckers I talked to said that they're very aware of where these runaway truck ramps are, especially driving in the Rockies in Wyoming and Colorado. The alternative to steering into a giant, basically a giant gravel moat that slows down an 80,000-pound missile coming down a 10% grade is to plow into other motorists, and that's obviously not not the outcome that that anybody wants. They also reacted to this recent incident on I-70, just just west of the Eisenhower Tunnel in Colorado, where a runaway truck had to use the ramp, and he had so much speed going that his truck, with a huge plume of of dust coming up behind him, went all the way to the top of this runaway truck ramp, which even the truckers I talked to said 'That's insane.'" Runaway truck ramps run channels of deep gravel and sand off the side of the highway to catch semitrailers that become 40 tons of steel, rubber, and momentum that can obliterate anything in their path. A 2023 study published in the journal Transportation Research Procedia found that gravel arresters can bring a vehicle to a complete stop in as little as 150 feet, depending on weight and whether the driver is or isn't braking. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Our own Clair McFarland writes that recently she's made a recipe her family loves but sounds gross. It's called feetloaf which she describes as a gruesome abomination of culinary science as a Halloween prank.  "I found the feetloaf recipe on a blog. I was getting pretty excited about the recipe, but when I was making the monster feet out of the meatloaf, I was laughing to myself because of how ridiculous I felt. But I shaped up the ankles, flooded them with ketchup, topped them with an onion slice to signify a bone, and put little onion toenails. It's the first time I've ever given a manicure to severed meat feet, and then popped it in the oven. and I thought, 'oh boy, when these feet come out; they're going to be so disgusted,' and it's going to pay them back for all those times they spat toothpaste on the faucet. But they were not disgusted; they were completely delighted." Clair adds "I can honestly say those were the only feet I've ever eaten and they were delicious!" Read the full story HERE. – Cowboy State Daily's Bill Sniffin just bought a Tesla because he loved the idea of the car driving him. In fact, the 80-year-old let the car drive for nearly all of his recent 3,000-mile trip.  "We flew down to Dallas. I had a doctor friend down there who had been trying to sell me this Tesla, and I fell in love with the car and fell in love with the idea of it doing a lot of the driving. And so we took off on a 3000-mile trip and went back to Iowa to our hometowns and visited relatives. And I just let the doggone car do most of the driving, and all it requires is that you take your finger and just press on it to give it a little constant pressure. Because these cars are all sensors. It's just full of sensors, and as long as it senses that you're paying attention, away it can go." Bill tells Cowboy State Daily that the only problem the car had navigating was construction zones. But besides that, Bill says it was a smooth ride back to Wyoming. Read the full story HERE. – Cheyenne is getting the PRCA's rodeo headquarters and Hall of Fame, but Wyoming tourism leaders are pushing for rodeo statewide to maximize the impact. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that former Wyoming tourism director Diane Shober says the statewide economic potential is huge. "This isn't just a huge economic impact in Southeast Wyoming or Cheyenne. It doesn't stop at the Laramie County border. Wyoming is a rodeo state. Like Jim Walter was saying when he was in Madison County, he basically was one of the communities on the way to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and they had all these people traveling through his community, and then one day they just started asking, you know, what about these people who travel through here? And when they did that, it was just like a huge boost for their tourism. Wyoming can do kind of a similar thing. Cheyenne is now Wyoming's Cooperstown." The 35-acre PRCA and ProRodeo Hall of Fame campus will anchor the 415-acre Hitching Post Business District near Interstates 25 and 80. Those two corridors put visitors on routes leading across the state. Read the full story HERE.  – For a woman with deep agricultural roots who became a candlemaker because she was tired of the consumerism of Christmas, she's thrilled her candle "Calf Slobbers"  is such a big hit. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports it may sound gross but for creator Jackie Miller Reeves, calf slobbers is a good thing. "The scent has really caught on to a lot of just Western buyers, egg-minded people, and non-ag-minded people. They buy in part for the curiosity. Some people, you know, purchase this scent because they're curious: what the heck does calf slobbers smell like? According to Miller Reeves, calf slabber has a sweet tang to it. You might think of it like smelling like lemon meringue pie. I talked to Lana Davis in Nebraska who owns Wesley's Boutique and purchases the calf slobber scent from Jackie Miller Reeves. Lana Davis also told me that it is her best-selling scent as well. And even last week when we were working on this story, it was sold out at Wesley's Boutique." While the name might raise eyebrows, the fragrance itself is bringing back memories of homemade pies topped with fluffy meringue — which is also sometimes called "calf slobber" because it resembles the white foam that builds up around

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Friday, October 23rd.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is sponsored by Lisa Kinney for Congress. Lisa has, Chuck hasn't. That's why former Gov. Mike Sullivan has endorsed Lisa Kinney for Wyoming House. Learn why Lisa is the choice for Wyoming's future at Lisa Kinney for Congress dot com. – A Lander man was convinced traditional traps would never capture the celebrity stray dog Diya at Split Rock Rest Area near Jeffrey City, so he secretly coaxed her to walk 90 miles to his home. Cowboy State Daily's Emma Jane Jackson reports the hiker, who wants to remain anonymous, said, "She followed me and my dog every step of the way." "Diya showed up at the Split Rock Rest area in mid-September, and based on her demeanor, she seems to be domesticated. She loves other dogs and she loves kids, but she's very cautious about adults and even more cautious about any kind of confinement. So, getting her into a kennel or on a leash proved to be incredibly tricky. She's also very smart. She was dodging attempts to try to feed her tranquilizer. This anonymous man also didn't loop anyone in on his plans beforehand. I'm in a group chat with Mark Lewis and several of the other volunteers, and Diya disappeared from the rest area on Friday night. Unbeknownst to everyone, she had started that 90-mile walk. So, at that time, people were fearing the worst. The unexpected plan is a happy ending for Diya, who has now been renamed Juniper. Mark Lewis said that he fully trusts that she's in good hands and she's off to a great life." Diya first arrived at the remote Fremont County rest stop in mid-September, quickly winning the hearts of dozens of locals while frustrating every effort to capture her. Read the full story HERE. – The Albany County Sheriff's race is a genuine feud as the two high-profile law enforcement officers sharply criticize each other. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports it casts the controversy of a high death rate in Sheriff Aaron Appelhans' jail against opponent Daron Wyatt's use-of-force history. "They're definitely criticizing each other. Wyatt said that he's busting out a semi-retirement because he sees problems and issues, liability risks at the sheriff's office, whereas Applehans is pointing to the you know these past use-of-force incidents like, 'whoa, Albany County, do we want this again?' Because they had a really controversial office- involved shooting in 2018 so they are you know in the political metaphorical sense they're at each other's throats. As far as projections for who might win are concerned, it's hard to tell because this truly is a purple county. Being a Republican doesn't guarantee the win. Being a Democrat doesn't guarantee a win, which makes it interesting to watch going into the general election." Appelhans, who is 45 and originally from Denver, has spent his entire adult life in Laramie, where he got his law-enforcement start at the University of Wyoming Police Department 16 years ago. The  59-year-old Wyatt, has 38 years of law-enforcement experience, including as a homicide and cold-case detective.  Read the full story HERE. – A Colorado man accused of searching for "cliffs near me" before killing his wife by driving off a cliff has returned to Wyoming and is being held on a $5 million bond for murder. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports police say the truck accelerated to 57 mph before going off the cliff. "46-year-old Forrest Wood was being held in a Colorado detention center in September, but he has since been extradited to Wyoming. He had initial appearance October 12, and this week he waived his preliminary hearing, which moves his murder case to Carbon County District Court. The case stems from a June 3 crash outside of Saratoga, where the couple was driving around before he started searching, allegedly, 'cliffs near me,' and then drove off a cliff. They both initially survived the crash. However, she died sometime later. When investigators started digging, they found that Wood had used his cell phone after the crash, but no attempts to call 911 were made." Wood told investigators the trip was supposed to give him and his wife time to talk about their troubled marriage. Read the full story HERE. – Deadly diseases called bluetongue and EHD that leave deer with bloody foam coming from their noses and mouths have hit parts of Wyoming this year, especially whitetails. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports the disease, which has hit North Dakota hard, can kill up to 90% of a herd. "They're transmitted through mid bites to wildlife, deer, elk, pronghorn, and basically they cause really nasty, horrible deaths. Basically the animals just kind of choked to death on their own blood because it causes really nasty, internal hemorrhaging. The midges that spread this disease, they like wet areas. One retired biologist, Joe Sandrini, told me that the midges tend to thrive in long-standing mud, and whitetails live along river bottoms and places like that, where there's going to be more of these constantly wet, muddy conditions where the midges are going to be. Hence, when there's an outbreak, the whitetailed deer tend to get hit first and hardest." Retired game warden and biologist Joe Sandrini tells Cowboy State Daily that one of the worst outbreaks he ever saw hit the Black Hills region a few years ago. "They were picking up dead deer every day in the town of Hulett," added Sandrini, who retired from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department in 2024. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – A candidate running for Albany County coroner is wondering why the DUI arrest of the sitting coroner last October never went public, so he's raising it. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports Sally King "was too intoxicated to have driven to the scene of the dead body," the police report reads. "In pretty much any Wyoming community, if a public official is getting a DUI, it's going to leak, and the news is going to pick it up. But that didn't seem to have happened for a year in the case of Sally King, Albany County coroner, who was arrested October 2025. She ultimately pleaded guilty, and now that she is facing  Republican Ryan Hershey going into the general election, Hershey has asked, 'why this never really reached the public?' It did finally surface when Hershey obtained the police report and made it public." King confirmed the arrest in a Wednesday email to Cowboy State Daily, saying, "I am deeply sorry and regret the decisions I made that day that led up to the situation." Read the full story HERE. – A Cheyenne dad says his daughter's SUV was vandalized with dog feces, oil, spray paint, garbage and broken glass after an argument with her boyfriend. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports he says his daughter is scared for her life, and with no arrest in 7 weeks, he "loses sleep every night." "John Becker explained that his daughter was in a toxic relationship, and in September, she and her now-ex got into an argument. When she left the Fox Hill Apartments in Casper later that night, she found her car in the parking lot had been vandalized with dog feces, oil, oil filters, spray paint, and even shards of glass smeared across the hood, the windows, and around the car. 18-year-old Tagan Becker had just bought this car. It was nearly brand new. In fact, she hadn't even made her first payment on it, so she was devastated. When she took the car to be cleaned and detailed, the bill was $1,500. Ultimately, the Beckers would like restitution, but they would also like some kind of disciplinary action against this person, who she says has made her feel afraid." Becker said his daughter and the unidentified young adult had been dating for a year.   Becker added the young man spent time with the family and was welcomed into their home. Read the full story HERE. – Carbon County Undersheriff Shawn Kelley abandoned his vacation Sunday to help rescue a hunter in the Snowy Range. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports that Sheriff Alex Bakken said he wasn't surprised.  "Kelley has been under sheriff for the past eight years, and said he always takes his phone with him when he goes on vacation, especially when he's up in the Snowy Range, so that if he is needed on a search or if they're shorthanded, that he is available. He was watching Sunday afternoon football at his family cabin during a week of hunting, and got a call that another hunter about five miles from him believed he was having a heart attack. So Kelley responded in his side-by-side. He went up there and assisted in the search and went back to his cabin and continued his vacation." The unidentified man was stranded in rugged mountain terrain near Ryan Brothers Lake, about five miles from Kelley's cabin. He was airlifted to a hospital, where his condition is unknown.  Read the full story HERE.  – An SUV crashed through the glass storefront of a Casper nail salon with people inside Thursday, shattering windows and scattering debris. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports the salon's owner was shaken long after it happened.  "Thursday afternoon, I spoke to Top Nail Salon owner Ngoc Nguyen, and she said that it was so scary. She was in the building when this SUV slammed into the glass doors, shattering them completely. She says, 'Luckily, no one was hurt, and the driver appeared to be okay.' She had gotten out of the vehicle and was walking around when law enforcement arrived. The Storefront Safety Council, which studies these types of crashes, says that this happens more than 100 times every day in the United States. Most common causes listed include operator error, someone hitting what they think is the brake and accidentally hitting the gas pedal, as well as impairment." The driver, an older woman whom Nguyen said appeared to be using oxygen, also appeared to be OK immediately a

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Thursday, October 22nd.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is brought to you by Casper Medical Imaging & Outpatient Radiology – Working to improve breast cancer screening rates across Natrona County and the state. If you're due for your mammogram, don't put it off any longer.  Self-schedule your screening mammogram at casper medical imaging dot net. – More than 100 people packed into the Midwest Recreation Center on Wednesday night to begin a four-day, full-court press to save grades 6-12 of their school which is on the Natrona County School District 1 chopping block. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson was at the meeting in Midwest and says people were upset, but organized. "I'm standing here in the Midwest Community Center, where they just got done with a public meeting. It was packed in here. There's more than 100 people, and basically, what they were doing was trying to figure out how to save their school. It seems like most of the people here just found out about this last week, and so they're rushing over the next few days, trying to organize to send emails, call school board members, call legislators, and the message is clear. They just want to save the school. They say it'll pretty much destroy the community, and so they want to send a message that hey, give us more time to figure out how we can make this work and not have to close it down." Parents, school staff and students are organizing an email and phone blitz targeting school district trustees ahead of Monday's school board meeting and Wyoming legislators with a single message — give us time to come up with alternatives to a drastic decision they say will devastate the close knit northern Natrona County oil town. Read the full story HERE. – A Rock Springs businessman said gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Bextel's accusations about him are "pissing him off." Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports that Bextel has claimed that Bruce Pivic approached her at a UW game, which he says didn't happen. "In one account, she claimed he was foaming at the mouth. She has said that he was demanding more money for the university and more help for the business community. And in a recent video, she said that it was Bruce Pivick. And Bruce Pivick has said all along, 'I never had any such interaction with her. I don't know what she's talking about. I don't know where she got this idea.' So Pivic set out this week to correct the record, because he had finally had enough. For one thing, she said that he is a UW trustee and on the Wyoming Business Council. For another, she said the man was about a foot shorter than she was. Pivic is 5'10" according to his driver's license, which he showed me on Wednesday, and Bextel is 5'9" according to her court record." Bextel has said repeatedly that the accoster, "Bruce," is on the Wyoming Business Council's board and the UW Board of Trustees, plus on the "board" of Barlow's campaign committee. The Wyoming Business Council and UW Board of Trustees don't share members currently, except for Gov. Mark Gordon, who serves both. Read the full story HERE. – The parents of a 26-year-old Casper woman who was killed while filming herself driving 105 mph off Highway 487 are heartbroken. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports that as Sydney Ruschmann's parents rushed to the accident last week, her stepfather says an officer warned him, "Do not come here, sir. Do not come here." "Sydney Ruschmann was reportedly using a social media app called Snapchat when her tires left the pavement, going over 105 miles per hour. She overcorrected to the left, sending the Ford Contour into a passengers' side-leaning skid. She struck a delineator post before the vehicle rolled and ended up in the opposite ditch. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The crash happened at about 10 p.m. at night. By this time, her parents, Adam and Melinda Doyle, had been notified as her emergency contacts through her cell phone's emergency services, and so they started driving towards the scene of the crash because they could tell where her location was using the Find My App." According to Wyoming Department of Transportation crash data,  4,452 crashes involving suspected distracted driving happened between 2020 through 2024. Those crashes killed 52 people. Read the full story HERE. – The longtime Uinta County Coroner was arrested Wednesday morning. Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that Gregory Crandall faces allegations that he stole more than $41,000 of public money, intentionally falsified a death certificate, and committed numerous other acts of misconduct. "DCI did an exhaustive investigation here, more almost more than a year and a half, and what they found, according to DCI, are allegations of a lot of financial alleged financial misappropriation services getting the county was getting billed for that weren't getting done, services that were greatly exaggerated with what the bills were. But some of them, a couple of the more serious allegations, one of them deals with allegations that the coroner deliberately altered a death certificate to cover up potential malfeasance in how they handled a body. And there's another allegation too about a body from an officer-involved shooting that was sent down to Denver to a pathologist down there. And when it arrived in Denver, it was just wrapped in a blanket. It didn't have all of the evidence tags. It wasn't put in plastic." The 66-year-old Crandall has been the county coroner since 2003 and is unopposed on the upcoming Nov. 3 general election ballot. Read the full story HERE. – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – A Cheyenne man who told a trooper that a pound of meth that was sticking out from under his butt was just a burrito was sentenced to more than 8 years in jail last week. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports the trooper didn't believe the claim and called in a K9 which confirmed the substance. "A Wyoming trooper who stopped a 58-year-old Cheyenne man on I-80 and noticed that the man was sitting on something silver and cylinder-shaped. When the trooper asked about it, Matthew Jacoby told him it was a burrito. Federal prosecutors later said that the Wyoming trooper was prepared to testify that in his thousands of traffic stops, he's never seen anyone sitting on their food. Three weeks later, Jacoby was also caught throwing methamphetamine out of the window of a stolen Dodge." Authorities say Trooper Austin Barker was sitting in his patrol vehicle when a silver four-door Saab blew past him at 95 mph in a 75 mph zone on December 8, 2025. Barker pulled out and stopped Jacoby, who was alone behind the wheel. Read the full story HERE. – American Fertilizer is pitching a massive "world-scale" nitrogen fertilizer plant outside of Cheyenne. Cowboy State Daily's Emma Jane Jackson reports that Cheyenne Mayor Patrick Collins calls the prospect "an exciting opportunity."  "A lot of the interest in this plant is coming from a national security angle. Right now, the U.S. imports a good chunk of the fertilizer. A lot of the fertilizer that U.S. farmers use is imported, so we're reliant on other countries to keep our supply chain going. The project is in very early development. It's a company called American Fertilizer. Right now, according to federal filings, they've raised over $2 million dollars from their own investments, but Mayor Collins told me that the project could be a lot bigger, even up to a multi-billion-dollar facility. Although the exact site has not been nailed down yet, Cheyenne looks promising and potentially having the plant at the Swan Ranch Business Park. Mayor Collins said this is a good spot because of the rail access and the intersecting highways." Cheyenne already has a nitrogen plant operated by Dyno Nobel, but American Fertilizer claims that its proposed facility would be the first world-scale nitrogen fertilizer plant in the region.  Read the full story HERE. – Cody-based US Ballistic Laboratories plans to open a second military-munitions site in Romania to churn out 155-millimeter high-explosive shells. Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz reports that CEO John McCue says with conflicts in Ukraine and Iran, "everybody's scrambling" for ammunition. "They've got their occupancy permit for that space, and hope to be actually churning out ammunition very, very soon. The CEO, he's a Cody native, so he kind of wanted to bring the business back home anyway. And then it was just just a good location, and Wyoming is a very business-friendly as well as munitions-friendly location, and so that and plus that the fact that it's near a railspur also helped." A $25 million deal to establish an ammunition production facility with US Ballistic was announced in September by Romania according to international reports. McCue tells Cowboy State Daily before the announcement, US Ballistic was very much "below the radar" in Romania but is now well-known and generally highly regarded there.  Read the full story HERE.  – The story of a giant 28-foot inflatable pumpkin rampaging more than 60 miles across southeastern Wyoming is being reported by news outlets as "breaking news." Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson reports that it's fake, another Casper Planet satire story picked up and reported as "real" news. "One outlet that I saw said that this is the Wyomingest thing ever. And I talked to Mr. Hathaway, who runs Casper Planet, and he says he can't believe that it took off the way it did, the story, not the pumpkin. And it's just incredible to him that people take that as real news when he goes out of his way to say this is satire. It's fake. I just make it up." The monstrous squash rambling across Wyoming toward Colorado was just the latest of those brainstorms, which he posted Sunday evening. The Wyoming Highway Patrol confirms it's had no reports of a giant pumpkin rolling anywhe

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, October 21st.  I'm Mac Watson.   This newscast is brought to you by Casper Medical Imaging & Outpatient Radiology – Working to improve breast cancer screening rates across Natrona County and the state. If you're due for your mammogram, don't put it off any longer.  Self-schedule your screening mammogram at casper medical imaging dot net. – The Oklahoma-based Chickasaw Nation has bought one of the biggest horse betting operations in Wyoming, including Horse Palace locations and Sweetwater Downs. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the sale includes "the entire operations" of Wyoming Holdings LLC, said a gaming official. "It's unique. We've had tribes owning gaming operations in Wyoming for years, but they've been Wyoming-based tribes. The Northern Arapaho, the Eastern Shoshone have owned casinos on the reservation. Now we have an out-of-state tribe buying big gaming operations on state land, which is a little bit unique. The director of the gaming commission, Nick Larramendy, emphasized that the Chickasaw Nation has extensive experience with gaming and, in particular, horse racing." Global Gaming Solutions, which is a subsidiary of the Chickasaw Nation, received Gaming Commission approval late last week for its purchase of Wyoming Holdings LLC. That includes about 13 different facilities, including live horse racing, off-track betting, historic horse racing machines and live betting. Read the full story HERE. – After a Cheyenne daycare provider allegedly blew a .40 BAC while caring for kids — five times the legal limit — a nurse says some people are unconscious at .15 and people over .50 still can walk and talk. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore went in search of answers to the question: How drunk is really drunk? "There is no hard and fast number. I spoke to a Wheatland nurse named Cory Meyer, who's encountered hundreds of drunk people in her career, and she said that though a BAC can tell how much alcohol is in someone's blood, there's no way to know how that number will affect a person cognitively. Meyer explains that some people have a much higher tolerance to alcohol. These are people who are usually daily drinkers, and so their body has become accustomed to processing those high levels of toxicity. The latest federal national survey on drug and health estimates that alcohol use is widespread in Wyoming." Most people know 0.08% as the line where it's illegal to drive. Double that, and a person can be severely impaired. WYDOT counted 622 alcohol-involved crashes in 2024: 25 of those were fatal. Read the full story HERE. – A Wyoming postal rep is filing a grievance because magazines, catalogs, and large envelopes that were supposed to be processed in Cheyenne are now going to Denver, adding at least a day to some Wyoming deliveries. Cowboy State Daily's Renee Jean reports that Bob Jacknitsky, Wyoming's state representative for postal workers union NPMHU Local 321, calls the move, "ridiculous." "What he's hoping to get to is arbitration, where he feels like he'll get a fair hearing about his allegations. He's saying that taking the flats away from Wyoming violates the Postal Service's universal service obligation, and he doesn't believe that it's more efficient in saving any money. Wyoming has tens of thousands of these flats. They had three employees who were processing them. He feels that that was more efficient than sending them to Denver and then sending them back to Cheyenne." To document the delivery effects in Cheyenne, Jacknitsky has been mailing flats to himself, as well as documenting other examples. In one case, he says a flat mailed from Florida reached a Cheyenne address faster than one mailed within Cheyenne. Read the full story HERE. – Steve Harshman, the longest-serving state House member, and Republican nominee for Superintendent of Public Instruction, says he can't vote for the 50% tax cut in Prop 1. Cowboy State Daily's Clair McFarland reports the legislator led a blockbuster effort to cut nearly all residential property taxes in 2024, but he says that measure had more guardrails. "Those in politics knew Representative Steve Harshman as the champion of property tax relief measures. He was trying to get rid of nearly all property taxes with a bill that would have replaced them with sales taxes at that time. Now the measure failed after days of controversy and debate. But then he came out on the debate stage last week and said he cannot support Prop 1. I asked him about that. He said it's apples and oranges, Clair, because my measure proposed a backfill with the sales tax hike, and it had a limit of a million-dollar cap, so you couldn't get the exemption on more than a million dollars' worth of home value." Property taxes fund public schools, community colleges, local governments and special districts. Firefighters are some of the most vocal opponents against plans to cut them. Read the full story HERE.  – I'll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.     Cowboy State Daily News continues now….  – Sublette County commissioners voted 4-1 Tuesday to uphold the expiration of a permit for a proposed residential trauma treatment center for girls near Pinedale. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports the owners say they've spent years on the project and might take the fight to court. "The Moyes family moved to Wyoming from California with the number one goal of building this sanctuary for girls ages 12 to 17. They bought property between Pinedale and Bondurant and intended to build this state-of-the art facility. Melinda Moyes told me there would be nothing like it in the country. However, county commissioners have pushed back on the project, saying that it has not met deadlines for getting certain permits, and because of that, they have failed to show reasonable progress in the four years that they've been trying to get going. And so, commissioners on Tuesday squashed the plan to move forward." The Sanctuary began as a deeply personal mission for the Moyes family. In 2014, trauma from a fire at their California home left their daughter with severe mental health challenges. As the family sought help, the family tells Cowboy State Daily they repeatedly encountered a troubling reality: Finding appropriate residential treatment for adolescent girls recovering from trauma was extraordinarily difficult. Read the full story HERE. – The driver for a popular music artist died from a medical emergency before the tour bus he was operating crossed three lanes of Interstate 25 and rolled near Cheyenne. Cowboy State Daily's Kolby Fedore reports one band member said, "It was a terrifying experience for everyone on board." "The family of a 50-year-old tour bus driver says that David Rollingcloud Jackson suffered a medical emergency and actually died while he was behind the wheel before a rollover in Cheyenne. He was driving for the artist Sawyer Hill when the incident happened. The vehicle went into three lanes before ultimately rolling. There were nine others on the bus. Several of them were injured, and Jackson died as a result."  WHP spokesman Aaron Brown tells Cowboy State Daily the investigation is not concluded. Brown added that Jackson was driving a 2024 Freightliner M2 and no other vehicles were involved. Read the full story HERE. – Activists called the raid on an Idaho mink farm "liberation" for the 1,500 minks they released. But Cowboy State Daily's Emma Jane Jackson reports they can't take care of themselves, says the farm's owner, leaving many to die of heat, stress, or get run over. "The activists say that mink are known to be able to survive in the wild, but the farm owner says that that has not been the case. The Franklin County, Idaho Sheriff's Office is investigating the incident, but no arrests have been made yet. The farm owner's son said that this is an act of terrorism, but a spokesperson for an animal rights group that I talked to said that the real terrorists are the ones keeping the animals in cages. There is a history of similar activists facing legal consequences. One of them is Joseph Budenburg. He did a similar release of mink from an Idaho farm about 10 years ago. Actually did get convicted and spent time in prison. He told me that this action, though, is still justified, saying, 'The fur industry's days are numbered. Compassionate activists will continue to open cages and shut these places down.'" When he spoke to Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday, farm owner Jeff Hobbs said he was still working to gather the loose minks in Franklin County. At this point, he said about 90% of the mink have been caught. Read the full story HERE. – When a moose calf became hopelessly tangled in wire fencing near an Idaho woman's home, sheriff's deputy Shiloh Frantz came to the rescue. Cowboy State Daily's Kate Meadows reports it wasn't easy.  "He had bolt cutters, but the handles were too short on those tools. So he knew he needed something with a longer handle. The one thing he had in his truck were tree trimmers, which didn't do a great job of cutting the wire. He did manage to do it. What it did do was keep him a safer distance from the moose.The deputy told me that he used sweet talk on the moose. He said things like, "Hey, buddy, we're going to get you out of this. I'm going to help you. He said that that helped the moose. When the moose was freed, it ran to a field and it stopped. It turned back and looked at Deputy Frantz, and he said, 'it made my day.'" The rescue began when a woman in her mid-70s called the Latah County, Idaho's Sheriff's Office after discovering the calf tangled in wire fencing on her property. Read the full story HERE. — And that's today's news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube chan